My wife found and bought me a stadium rig in a charity shop

ICBM

Loobs said:

is there anything you don't think is awful?

 

Lots. I just don't follow conventional wisdom a lot of the time .

In all seriousness, these amps can sound vaguely good as a clean valve platform for pedals etc as Cirrus said - but the overdrive sound isn't good at all, they sound nothing like a classic Vox and they have build quality and reliability issues... on top of being unnecessarily large and heavy - so I really don't get why anyone would pay a lot for one just because it's old, was made by one of the worst incarnations of the Vox brand and contains valves. Take off the rose-tinted specs and it's just an old and not very good amp which may or may not still contain usable Mullards...

I would certainly not pay more for one than the value of any decent modern amp that's loud enough to gig. If it came from a charity shop I expect MrsCirrus paid the right price for it.

I don't think most AC30s are awful. I don't even think the AD15VT is awful, that wasn't a joke .

Hootsmon

Supportact said:

Did she bring it back on the bus? 

She didn't have tae.......she got a cab with it

Lebarque

Loobs said:

ICBM said:

bertie said:

what speakers are in the caps ?  (blues ?  ) 

Fanes with blue frames, not the same thing at all.

Personally I think these amps are absolutely awful! But since they’re old, Vox, and have valves in, some people are willing to pay quite a lot for them…

If you’re lucky, the valves are the original Mullards. Worth more than the rest of it in my opinion .

is there anything you don't think is awful?

Peavey Bandits and Mesa Blue Angels.

Cirrus

The greenbacks sound fantastic at decent volume with my AC30. Dunno how much to attribute to the old cones and how much is an incredible amount of breaking in, but they're clear with no fizz up top and have gorgeous low mids. I thought the ported cab might result in an overly bassy sound but no, it just adds some depth/ punch exactly where I think Greenbacks need them.

The V125 head through the other 4x12 is indeed pretty pants sounding. I actually think it'd be good as an overdub or character amp - something like QOTSA focussed midrange. But it's a very constrained sound, it's like there's a low pass filter and a cocked wah somewhere in the preamp. I'll take a bit of time to decide what I want to do with it - might just sell it on, or do some mods. Because in principle a 4x el34 beast with decent transformers could sound pretty great...

Cirrus

A little update. Obviously I'm going to sell the V125 lead at some point. It's a deeply strange amp. I actually wouldn't say it's terrible - it's just clean valve stages, with bad sounding dirt coming from the wrong place (solid state input stage), and the tone stack is mental, with centre tapped pots. But... I had a look inside, and whoever owned it last really looked after it. The main can filter cap's been replaced with an F&T, some other caps, I guess bias supply? Have been replaced with Vishay, and the valves were replaced. No old Mullards I'm afraid @ICBM .

I had thought about using it as a modding platform - could have some fun making a different 4x el34 circuit with the transformers, or just tweaking the existing tone, but it seems a shame to butcher something that was clearly cared for.

ICBM

I definitely wouldn’t mod it. To make it into anything ‘conventional’ sounding you’d have to strip the whole circuit out and start again, which would be a huge job and it would be odd without redoing the control panel as well. Better to sell it as-is to someone who either actually wants it for what it is, or doesn’t realise it’s not a high-powered AC30 .

Bork

Loobs said:

ICBM said:

bertie said:

what speakers are in the caps ?  (blues ?  ) 

Fanes with blue frames, not the same thing at all.

Personally I think these amps are absolutely awful! But since they’re old, Vox, and have valves in, some people are willing to pay quite a lot for them…

If you’re lucky, the valves are the original Mullards. Worth more than the rest of it in my opinion .

is there anything you don't think is awful?

Boss Katanas lol

ICBM

Bork said:

Boss Katanas lol

To be fair, I recently played a MkII one, and it wasn’t as truly appalling as the MkI.

I’d still rather have the Vox though... lifting it aside!

Cirrus

ICBM said:

I’d still rather have the Vox though... lifting it aside!

I mean it's on eBay if you want it . Not to be confused with the one some bastard listed 2 days after I put mine up.

You could hang it above your door as a talisman against Katanas.

ICBM

Cirrus said:

I mean it's on eBay if you want it . Not to be confused with the one some bastard listed 2 days after I put mine up.

No! But at least it's not the combo that fool keeps listing as some sort of "high powered AC30" for about £2K...

Lodious

A V125 combo was the first 'proper' amp I ever owned. I'm not sure how good it sounded, I think it was OK when it was up cranked. 

It was not hugely reliable. My brother ended up fixing it a few times and I think he mentioned something about electrically it being a death trap, but it didn't see me off. 

Paul Weller did an advert for them which ran in some of the music mags of the day.